


Finding Home

by Sophia_Bee



Series: Charles and Erik: Book Club Fics [2]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Anonymous Sex, Charles You Slut, Dark, Erik has Feelings, Erik has Issues, Infidelity, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Smitten Erik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 05:54:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2417432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia_Bee/pseuds/Sophia_Bee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The day Erik proposes to Magda and she answers yes, everyone slaps him on the back and says how wonderful it is to see such a lovely example of first love. Erik smiles and tries to look happy but he knows that Magda isn’t his first love by far, but he can’t explain to people that before Magda there was Stefan."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is an Erik POV prequel to Book Club, exploring the events that lead Erik to meet Charles on that fateful night. I think you could read this before or after reading Book Club. It shouldn't matter much or ruin either one.

The day Erik proposes to Magda and she answers yes, everyone slaps him on the back and says how wonderful it is to see such a lovely example of first love. Erik smiles and tries to look happy but he knows that Magda isn’t his first love by far, but he can’t explain to people that before Magda there was Stefan. 

He and Stefan had only been fifteen at the time, spending every afternoon of one long, hot summer together: at his house, watching movies, talking, and sometimes jerking each other off like it was the most normal thing in the world that friends do for each other. Erik had longed to kiss him and one time he finally did, rolling over, his belly sticky with come, and softly placing his mouth on Stefan’s, feeling the other boy kiss him back, until he froze under Erik’s touch and pulled away. Stefan had been more distant after that, and it wasn’t much longer before he started dating some bland girl in their class named Letta, who always chewed on the ends of her pencils, and Erik had glared at her and huffed around, then he’d asked Magda out on a date just to get revenge. That was his first love, and although he still would see Stefan around, and had even gone one a double date with him and Letta that did not end up with Erik and Stefan making out in the bathroom as Erik hoped, he and Stefan eventually drifted apart, going to different universities and wanting different things out of life. 

He was left with Magda. She was sweet and accommodating, and would bring him sandwiches while he studied French literature late into the night, and after a couple years at university, Erik did what everyone had expected of him. He took her out for a nice dinner and got down on one knee, pulling out his grandmother’s ring and asked her to spend the rest of her life with him. At the same time, he promised himself that he would stop visiting the bathrooms in the park across from the university, slipping into the unkempt stalls and allowing various random, faceless men to suck him off. 

Magda said yes, looking at him with so much love in her eyes that it made Erik ashamed that he wasn’t able to offer her what she really deserved, and that he was not being strong enough to tell her the truth and destroy everything they had built together. He slipped the ring onto her slender finger and she looked at it, with it’s just shy of small diamond and antiquated setting, and declared it the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. This somehow hurt Erik, that Magda was willing to see everything he did as beautiful, and all he could see was that it was a lie. 

They were married quickly, a ceremony at the courthouse in Erik’s hometown, and not for the first time Erik wished his parents were still alive. Magda’s parents hugged him and told him he was like a son to them, and Erik didn’t tell them that their newly gotten son would most likely turn out to be a terrible disappointment. He and Magda got into his battered car and drove back to university, now able to move into married housing, and Erik told her on the way that he thinks he’d like to continue on after they get their degrees and get his doctorate. Magda was supportive as always, placing a hand on his arm as they drive, telling him that she’ll support him in whatever he wants to do. 

Things are great for a couple years, and Erik has managed to reduce his visitations to the bathrooms to just a couple times a year, when he gets so hot and bothered and longing to have someone’s cock in his mouth that he feels like he’s crawling out of his skin and gives in to what he knows is cheating on his wife. He’s always careful, making sure whoever it is wears condoms, terrified that he’s going to bring something entirely unexpected home to Magda and then he’ll be forced to confess that everything isn’t quite how it appears. 

Erik is accepted into a French literature program and they move to Dusseldorf, into married housing again, and Magda takes a job at a local coffee shop. Slowly they start to splinter, Magda not outwardly saying anything about the fact that Erik is wanting to fuck her less and less, and he tells her that it’s the stress of the doctoral program, which is only half true. The other truth he can’t tell her is that he’s not happy. He’s never really been happy, but he’d accepted that this is what he needs to do, but lately the burden of living this way had become almost too much. 

She wants children and they fight more and more about it, ending with Magda in the bedroom crying softly, and Erik drinking a beer on the couch, thinking there is absolutely no way out for him in this situation. He cannot bring a child into this relationship, because he knows that while he does love Magda, part of their relationship is a lie, and if a child is involved, Erik will never be able to leave. For the first time Erik realizes that his marriage is time and date-stamped, and it always has been, and it’s only a matter of time before it entirely expires. 

He meets Sebastian the next day. 

Erik starts his second quarter of his doctorate program and the TA tells the class that his name is Sebastian Shaw, gazing out over the people seated in the chairs, and Erik feels himself slump further down, willing Shaw not to look his way. Shaw is tall and has blonde-tipped hair, and his eyes are sharp and ice-blue, and his gaze falls on Erik, who is trying to look anywhere but at the man at the front of the room, his pants feeling uncomfortably tight. 

Against his better judgement, Erik goes up to Shaw at the end of class to ask him some mundane question about the syllabus, and he does his most awkward imitation of flirting, although he knows he really shouldn’t, and he notices that Shaw glances down at Erik’s wedding ring, then back at Erik’s eyes, that are eager and willing, then he licks his lips. 

Erik should have known then, and later he’ll regret not heeding the warning sign that someone who is willing to ignore the fact that the object of his lust is wearing a wedding ring is probably willing to disrespect other boundaries. Instead his brain appears to have migrated to his cock, which is tingling, and when Shaw tells Erik he should come see him during office hours, Eriks shows up with coffee in hand and an eager smile on his face. 

Sebastian, as Erik starts to call him, is charming and suave, and it turns out that Erik had not misread him that first day because he is forthright on that first visit that he would very much like to fuck Erik. Erik refuses, but agrees to kiss him, and Sebastian shuts the door to his office then comes around his desk, pulling Erik to him, their bodies pressing together, and crushing his mouth to Erik’s. It’s not sweet but commanding, pushing Erik’s mouth open a little roughly, but Erik likes it and kisses him back. 

Kissing Sebastian isn’t like kissing Magda. Kissing Magda has never been like this, and Erik realizes for all his experience in the bathrooms across from the university, he hasn’t kissed another man since he kissed Stefan a lifetime ago. Sebastian’s mouth is firm and strong and aggressive, and Erik feels his cock start to fill and he wants so much more. It’s never been like this with Magda, with sex being mostly enjoyable but never this needy and filled with pleasure. 

It’s the beginning of the end. 

He starts to see Sebastian regularly, and it’s not long before they’re fucking, and hell, Erik knows that he’s finally actually fallen in love with someone who he also wants so badly that he aches. He and Magda talk less and he spends more time away, telling her he’s at the library when he’s really at Sebastian’s flat, until they barely see each other. Then one day Erik comes home to find Magda sitting on the couch, her eyes red and puffy from crying. 

The fight they have should be a knock-down, drag out kind of screaming match, but it’s not. Magda tells him she saw him. With Sebastian, wrapped around each other, walking through the park. She had been on an errand for the coffee shop, and it stings even more that Erik was willing to be in public knowing that Magda wouldn’t be anywhere near, but they had run out of vanilla syrup, so Magda had left her coworker in charge and had run to buy another bottle, cutting through the park. She laughs wryly, telling him that she almost didn’t go that way, but the it was one of those warm, sunny fall days and the leaves were turning and she thought it would be nice to walk through the park, look at the trees, see people out enjoying the sunshine. She never expected that one of the couples she would see walking together, enjoying the sunshine, would be her husband and his lover. 

Erik remembers that afternoon, walking with Sebastian, who was telling him that Erik’s latest paper had been brilliant, and he had such a promising future, and Erik hadn’t cared much because he was happy, doing his usually coping thing of not thinking about anything but the man he had his arms wrapped around. Too much thinking about what he’s doing and who he’s doing it to hurts. He’s sorry Magda is hurt and he’s handled everything badly, but part of him feels set free and strangely happy that Magda finally knows and they can now move forward apart from each other. It had always felt this moment was inevitable. 

He shows up at Sebastian’s apartment, a bag slung over his shoulder, and when the other man opens the door, he looks surprised to see Erik standing there, eager, a smile on his face. 

“Erik,” Sebastian says, his tone smooth. Erik doesn’t notice the edge in Sebastian’s voice, he’s just so happy that he is finally free.

“Magda is leaving me,” Erik says. 

“Oh,” Sebastians says slowly, “and you came here?”

“Yes,” Erik answers. Where else would he go. He wants his life with Sebastian to start right away and now he pushes back a feeling of uneasiness in his stomach. Sebastian smiles and steps into the hallway, taking Erik into his arms. 

“That’s fantastic,” Sebastian say smoothly, “let’s get you a hotel for the night and we can figure things out tomorrow.” 

Erik doesn’t question this. It’s not like he’s ever spent the night at Sebastian’s apartment since they’ve been seeing each other, so he’s not surprised he’s not invited in. It would be years later that Sebastian would reveal to Erik that he’d had someone else there that night, someone else he was fucking, and this would be right after he laughed at Erik and yet again called him stupid for assuming he would be exclusive when Sebastian had never agreed to it. This was before Erik realized how cruel Sebastian could be at times. Right now he just knows that he’s in love with this man and they can finally be together, so what’s one more night apart. 

Erik moves eventually moves in. 

He and Magda split up the things that have come to represent their lives together and more than once Erik is grateful that they only have a few years to divide and not a lifetime, and especially not children. Magda is so hurt that she can barely look at him and Erik hates this, and they will part ways and never see each other. At some point Magda will start to send holiday cards, pictures of her with some bland man next to her and their entirely socially acceptable baby girl dressed in pink and lace, with her signature scrawled on the back along with a terse ‘hope you are well’. This first will arrive sometime in the year after Erik and Sebastian break up, and Erik will read that short phrase over and over again, and ironically, he’s not as well as Magda is hoping. She is happy with her family and he is reeling, drinking too much, fucking too much, trying desperately to hang onto his university job and entirely not well. 

That is in the future, and Erik doesn’t know any of this will happen as he and Sebastian settle into what Erik thinks of as domestic bliss, both of them spending their days at the university, Erik entering into his third year of his doctoral program, Sebastian writing his thesis. It’s all good and perfect, and Erik is happy enough to ignore that some things aren’t quite as perfect as he would like to think. 

He ignores those things, writes them off, like his thirtieth birthday when one of the students Sebastian has invited to their place to celebrate spends the entire time chatting with Erik in the corner, and Erik finds him interesting, leaning in to hear more because he’s fascinated with his take on the impact of Ralph Waldo Emerson, when Sebastian comes over grips Erik’s bicep hard enough to bruise.

“I need help with the cake,” Sebastian says, and Erik nods, excusing himself and following Sebastian into the kitchen. Once they are standing together at the counter, pushing candle into white frosting, and Erik notices that ‘happy birthday Erik’ is scrawled in his favorite color, blue, Sebastian turns to Erik with anger in his eyes, “he wants to fuck you.”

Erik is confused for a moment then realizes that Sebastian is referring to the student who he was talking to, “oh, him. I don’t think so, well, maybe,” Erik stutters. 

“Only I fuck you,” Sebastian says, and Erik is momentarily taken aback. Then Sebastian is kissing him, pushing him against the counter, and Erik’s cock responds accordingly, and yes, if that’s what Sebastian wants, he’s the only one who will fuck Erik, but that’s never been a question in the first place. 

Over time things change in increments so small that the day that Erik realizes things are very wrong comes as a complete surprise. Sebastian has grown increasingly distant and dismissive of Erik, but they’ve been together for a couple years now, and Erik thinks it’s just the way relationships go. After all, he and Magda had become even more miserable over a shorter period of time, and there isn’t a time that Erik doesn’t desire Sebastian. There isn’t that same numbness he had with Magda, and whenever he thinks maybe things aren’t quite what they should be, he also doesn’t recognize that his view of the world might be skewed by his experience. 

Their sex lives turns rougher, with Sebastian becoming more dominating in bed, and he brings in leather and handcuffs, which Erik initially loves, but sometimes he wishes Sebastian were just a little softer, and this isn’t exactly what he’d expected sex would be like over time. 

The domination starts to leak out of the bedroom and Sebastian starts to look at Erik’s calendar and call him, asking where he is, and if Erik isn’t where he’s supposed to be, Sebastian gets mad and they end up in a fight. Erik starts to be very careful about making sure he’s always where his calendar says he is because he doesn’t want them to fight. 

At the same time, Sebastian starts spending more nights away. He’s about to defend his doctorate, he tells Erik, and the library is open overnight, but he often arrives home in the morning with his lips looking swollen and bruised, and for a while Erik just ignores this. 

The first time Erik finally brings up that he thinks Sebastian isn’t being entirely honest about where he’s spending these nights is the first time Sebastian laughs at him for expecting him to exclusive. Erik can’t help the tears that sting his eyes because it’s not like he WANTS this type of relationship, but they’ve been together almost three years now, and he can’t walk away from everything they’ve built together. Erik sleeps on the couch that night and when Sebastian comes out of the bedroom and asks if he wants to fuck, Erik just looks at him in disbelief. 

When Erik defends his thesis and graduates, Sebastian grins at him and pulls him close, crushing the ridiculous ruffled collar Erik seems to have earned, then whispers into his ear as they embrace, 

“I made you, you know.” 

That’s the breaking point for Erik, and although it will take him a couple more months, and several screaming fights, to extract himself from the relationship, like Magda, he and Sebastian become time and tdate-stamped, and their future is no longer something that will happen with them together. Erik starts to apply for jobs and he takes the first offer he gets, a university in Dublin He tells Sebastian he’s leaving, and instead of reacting with surprise, like Erik and secretly hoped, and maybe asking Erik to stay, Sebastian looks at him coolly and says he was wondering when this day would come. 

This is how Erik finds himself in Dublin on his 33rd birthday, entirely alone and entirely fucked up, a bottle of whiskey half drank sitting half full on the dingy kitchen table of his sparsely furnished apartment. Unlike divvying up his life with Magda, he hadn’t wanted anything of Sebastian’s, so he’d left with a few boxes of books and a duffle bag of clothes and nothing else. He’d found a place that was already furnished and was supposed to start teaching French Lit next week at Trinity. 

That’s the first night Erik decides to go out and find someone to fuck.

It’s been a long time since the bathrooms at the university in Dusseldorf, and at first he’s not quite sure where to find a nice piece of anonymous ass, but Dublin is a big city and has several gay bars, and Erik figures that’s a good place to start. He’s right because not many hours later he’s a little more drunk and slamming his cock into the ass of some pretty boy who had run his hands up and down his chest and muttered something about how he looked very, VERY big. 

This is how Erik’s life goes for the next year. He teaches and earns a reputation of being a stern, demanding professor, and he spends his weekends fucking, but he always is safe and he always uses a condom, because he might be borderline self destructive but he’s not stupid. 

Fucking is somewhat self-hating, but more than that, it’s liberating, because Erik has tried to be in relationships and he has failed, and this might be all he deserves in the end, because he can’t shake the feeling that when it comes to Sebastian and their failed relationship, there could have been something he could have done differently. He gets better and better at fucking and sucking cock, and sometimes he sees that look on the other man’s face that says he wants more than just an anonymous tryst in the bathroom at the club, and that’s always enough to send Erik running the other way. 

Somewhere in the middle of this, he makes a friend. 

His name is Sean and he’s, strangely enough, the Guy at the Coffee Shop where Erik sometimes spends his evenings grading papers. After a few months of Erik sitting at the same table until closing, Sean comes over and sits down across from him and starts talking. He does that again the next night and eventually Erik looks forward to Sean interrupting him and Erik has always been so solitary, having a friend is entirely new to him. 

It’s strange having male in his life that doesn’t involve sex, but it’s exactly what Erik needs, and soon he and Sean are catching a football game now and then, or going out for pints, and one day Sean looks at him and says to him in his thick, Irish brogue, “man, I don’t think you’re happy.” 

It’s such a simple observation but it shakes Erik down to his roots. He’s not happy. He’s still reeling from what Sebastian did to him, and what it all means, and the word abuse has floated to the surface of his mind more than once. He likes sex and going out, but he never wakes up the next day feeling entirely happy, and he knows he drinks too much and has arrived at his Monday morning class more than once with blood shot eyes, making some of his colleagues whisper. He needs to find more balance. 

He decides to cut back. Not as much alcohol. Not as much sex. He decides to spend more weekend reading, and starts to work his way through the 19th century French authors. He still goes out. He still fucks, but slowly it starts to be when he is feeling hot and bothered and wants the release and not because he’s trying to fuck away all his feelings. He takes up yoga, for goddsake, thinking that he looks ridiculously hot in his yoga pants, and laughs at how fucking enlightened he’s become. Slowly, painfully, Erik starts to crawl out of the hole he dug for himself. The seasons turn and they head into summer break, and Erik realizes it’s been almost two years since he left Dusseldorf and Sebastian behind, and in a way Dublin has become more home than anywhere else he’s lived since he was a child. 

“You need a change,” Sean says one day at the pub, always the font of wisdom, and Erik looks at him across the pint he’s about to drain. 

“Really,” Erik says, raising an eyebrow, “Why do you think?” 

“I don’t know. You just don’t do much. You teach, you go out, but there’s more to life, man. Maybe you need a vacation or something.”

Erik thinks about what Sean is saying. Getting away sounds good. Maybe the mediterranean, with warm beaches and sexy men everywhere. Erik gets some brochures, checks out some travel books. He makes a spreadsheet and is about to ask for the time off when something happens that changes everything. 

It’s summer and everyone is out on the streets, in and out of bars, stretched out on the grass in the parks. The air is warm and buzzing with energy, but Erik has decided that this Saturday he’ll try to finish Adolphe. He often wonders what might have happened if he’d listened to the sunshine beckoning and hadn’t been there where when his phone rings. Erik looks at the number and doesn’t recognize it, but maybe it’s Sean calling from one of his occasional girlfriend’s numbers, so Erik answers it. 

“Hello, Erik,” Sebastian’s voice says smoothly in his ear. Suddenly Erik is back where he was a year ago, battered and broken, and something in his gut clenches. 

“Sebastian,” Erik says quietly.

“I’ve missed you.” 

Erik wants to yell at him, to ask him after all he’s done how could he think it okay to just call and act like nothing has happened, to actually tell Erik he’s been missed. 

“How did you get my number?”

“You’re not hard to trace, liebling” Sebastian purrs, and Erik closes his eyes at the endearment that had once felt so intimate and now makes him feel sick. Sebastian knew Erik had gone to Trinity, and he wishes he'd been able to make a cleaner break. 

There would have been a time, not long after he'd arrived in Dublin, that Sebastian calling him, saying he wanted him back, would have sent Erik back into his arms and back into that cycle of betrayal and pain. But now all he can feel is anger. Fuck him for treating Erik like dirt then calling and telling he was missed. Erik's hand are shaking but he keeps his voice steady, not betraying the effect Sebastian has on him. 

"You have no right," Erik hisses into the phone. "We are done. Never call me again."

Erik hears Sebastian protest as he ends the call. They are done. Now Erik can let go of the control he's been using to get through talking to Sebastian he buries his face in his hands and sinks to the floor, heaving gutteral sobs for all he's lost. Not just Sebastian. Magda, even Stefan, but also for all the time he's lost figuring this out. When Erik is spent and can finally pick himself up, he decides that he is going to make things right in his life. No more hurting others, and even more importantly, no more hurting himself. He will live openly and honestly from now on.

It turns out that Sean had been right. He needs a change, but not some sort if vacation. He needs a big change, so Erik starts looking at jobs online, thinking about where he wants to go. Dublin had been an escape hatch from his previous life, so now he decide she's going to go somewhere he really wants to be. He puts in applications and starts to hear back from various universities. Two weeks after Sebastian's call Erik calls up his department head and tells him he will need a leave of absence in the fall. For personal reasons. Let them think the high strung Erik Lehnsherr has finally gone crazy. He finalizes his plans. First New York, a small private school that had eagerly responded to his application, then back to Dublin and on to Milan a few weeks later. 

He goes to the coffee shop at closing to see Sean and tell him his plan. Their friendship so far has been mainly pints and football matches, and Erik doesn't know how the other man will respond to him telling him something personal, but he's decided he’s going to be honest with himself and others from now on, and he wants his friendship with Sean to be part of that. 

"So," Erik starts as Sean is wiping tables, "I'm leaving town for a bit, not too long."

Erik pauses and Sean stops cleaning tables and looks at him. "Great, man."

"And this is partly because of what you said, that I need a change."

"Awesome."

Also, I haven't ever explicitly said but I wanted you to know..." Erik pauses, then continues, "I'm a gay man.” Sean looks at him with this proclamation and Erik can't quite read his face, then the other man bursts out laughing.

"I knew that already," Sean says. "Every time we go to a match you spend quite a bit of time checking out the footballers arses." 

Erik blinks. Not just their asses, they have nice legs too, and he thinks he may have slept with one if them, but he doesn't say any if this to Sean. He just opens his mouth, then closes it and says "oh."

Sean wishes him luck and says they'll catch up when Erik returns. Sean pats Erik on the back in a very manly fashion and Erik responds by pulling the other man into a big, non-manly hug in a rare display of emotion. He's so happy to have a friend. 

Erik leaves for New York the next day. 

Moira McTaggart, who has been emailing back and forth with Erik, meets him at the airport. She's pretty but nervous and a little bookish in the way Erik has found most English professors to be. She talks a lot, telling Erik they're excited to have him interview and tour the campus. They're a small university and are trying to build their department to be able to compete with some of the bigger schools around the city. She tells him his specialty in French Literature would be a great addition to their department, and does he speak French? Erik blinks as she stares at him, waiting for an answer.

Oh god, McTaggart is flirting. 

Erik answers that he speaks four languages and he's a bit jet lagged, so he'd love to check into his hotel and he'll see her for the campus tour the next day. 

He's there for three days so he does the campus tour and the interview and the student mixer. Erik asks all the right questions and politely compliments their campus. It's all very, um, collegiate. By the last day he's ready for an evening to himself and thinks he might check out one of the city's excellent gay bars and maybe get fucked as a way to bid farewell to the States. 

His plans are waylaid by Moira, who tells him she's loved meeting him and she hopes to see him for Winter quarter and they have just one more event planned. He's lucky that his visit has been perfectly timed for him to attend the faculty book club. 

"Book club," Erik repeats, trying but failing not to stare at Moira. That wasn't quite the club he's been thinking of. 

"I can't have you thinking we're all work and no play," Moira says in a serious enough tone that Erik knows to bite back his laughter, "we're discussing the last book of the Divergent trilogy, and there will be wine, although not too much. One time there was too much and that wasn't good. And snacks. Hank makes these great puff pastry things. He's kind of the foody of the group. And Charles is coming. You haven't met Charles yet but I think you'll like him." 

"Okay," Erik says quickly, "give me your address and I'll take a cab."

Moira offers Erik a big flirty smile and Erik thinks to himself, good lord woman, I do not bat for your team. 

Erik is going to book club. 

Erik arrives early because Erik arrives everywhere early and Moira puts him to work cutting up veggies. Slowly faculty start arriving, greeting each other with hugs, carrying plates with snacks, chatting congenially with each other and Erik admits to himself that this is a very nice group of people. 

Then therre's a sharp, almost jaunty rap on the door and Moira calls to Erik from the dining room where she's opening wine, asking him to answer it. 

"It's probably Charles," she says, "he's the only one we're missing now." 

Erik goes to the door, opens it and it is indeed the mysterious Charles, and all semblance of speech drains from Erik's brain. 

Charles is quite unexpected. Instead of a bookish professor, he's actually young, and fucking hot. He's shorter than Erik and slender, wearing a black v-neck t-shirt that looks very nice on him and jeans that are fitted perfectly in a way that's making Erik's mouth go dry and he has just the right amount of facial hair to be sexy. His hair is brown, or maybe chestnut, and stylishly floppy, and from under it The Quite Unexpected Charles is staring at him with a pair of lovely blue fuck-me eyes. Erik's gaze moves to Charles' mouth because Erik always likes a good pair of lips on a man and Charles does not disappoint. His mouth is red and looks like it would look entirely delectable stretched around Erik's cock. The other man must be thinking something along the same lines because he bites his lower lip and, Mein gott, the way Charles is looking at Erik, they are seconds away from putting the Club into book club. Erik's gaze drifts down to see if Charles hands are as slender and lovely as he hopes and he sees that the other man is holding a cheese plate. A fucking cheese plate. This causes Erik's mouth to quirk a little and he finally manages to find his voice.

"Book club?" Erik asks, barely able to contain his amusement at this turn of events. 

Erik is saved by Moira, who pushes past him and grabs Quite Unexpected Charles, dragging him into the apartment. 

For the rest of his life, Erik will thank the universe, or the gods, or whoever, that he met Charles Xavier and book club and not at a crowded night club, where he would have probably just fucked him, and maybe it would have been the best random fuck of his life, and that would have been that. Instead he spends the whole evening trying to keep no further than a few feet from Charles while also trying not to look like a creeper, and his ears seem to be tuned to pick up everything Charles is saying. He discovers that Charles is funny, and charming and cheeky, and surprisingly awkward if his attempts to seduce Erik are any evidence. He hopes the man has better luck with men in other areas of his life. 

As the night wears on the lust that Erik had felt when he initially encounters Charles shifts into something else entirely, and he thinks he might be somewhat smitten. 

Erik has never experienced smitten. Stefan was so long ago and he’d never allowed himself to give what was going any sort of label, and Magda had been obligation. Sebastian was nothing even close to normal because most people don’t begin a relationship by cheating on their wife. Erik realizes that he’s never once had the chance for any sort of normal relationship. So he decides that he’s going to give himself the chance, and he’s not going to take up Charles on the invitations he’s throwing at Erik every few minutes by biting his lip or cocking an eyebrow suggestively. Erik decides that if he’s going to do anything with Charles, it’s going to be date him. 

He still manages to kiss him, because when Erik excused himself from book club citing his early flight in the morning, he is entirely surprised and pleased as punch to see Charles following him, and this turn of events makes Erik very thrilled to see the other man, and he can’t help but give him his widest, happiest, toothiest grin. All of this makes kissing Charles inevitable, so once the doors of the lift have slid shut, he pulls the stop and turns, almost attacking Charles, and Charles kisses him back in kind. 

It is incredibly lovely and sexy and hot until Charles mutters something about lube and condoms and Erik goes still. Is this where Charles thinks things are going? He tells Charles he’s not interested in a quick shag in the lift and watches him as he deflates, and this makes Erik want to laugh, because not everything is about sex. Not that he’s one to talk. 

He proposes a date. Just one, and Charles looks wary, but he agrees, although Erik suspects Charles isn’t entirely on board with his plan, but that’s okay because Erik also enjoys Charles’ attempts at seduction. They part ways outside the building, Erik thinking that sharing a cab might not be the best idea, so he tells Charles he’s going the opposite way of him, although in truth Erik really has no idea if his hotel is or isn’t on the same side of town where Charles lives. He just knows that being in a cab after kissing Charles in that manner will probably melt all his resolve to do this the right way, and Erik really doesn’t want that. As he watches the cab with Charles in the back pull down the street, Erik feels light and happy, and he wants to tell someone, so he pulls out his phone and quickly sends a text to Sean, not even thinking about the time change between New York and Dublin. 

-I think I’m in love.

Erik is rewarded with a notification that Sean has replied moments later, and he looks at his phone and reads what his friend has written, and it brings a smile to his face. 

-I’m glad you found what you’re looking for. 

When he gets back to his hotel, Erik calls the airlines and changes his departure date, then he calls the front desk and arranges to keep his room. He’s going to stay a bit longer than expected. He has a date. 

~fin~


End file.
